Becoming the Angel
by ArizunoShojo
Summary: Ever since she was a small girl Susie had always wanted to make it to the big screen. There was no worried, no poverty, only stories of happy endings and glamor. But for a young woman from an average background to get into the acting business let alone onto the silver screen was not easy. Then two months after joining the studio Susie finally saw the answer to all of her prayers.


I got into the BATIM fandom about two months ago and i must say that there are not only many interesting theories but also very creativ fans resulting in both art, stories and music.

This fanfic do have some base in the 'worker transformation theory'. This is more or less a character focused fic about how a transformation took place.

I do not own Bendy and the Ink Machine. It Belongs to The Meatly.

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Becoming the Angel

It started out as a dream. Ever since she was a small girl Susie Campbell had always wanted to make it to the big screen. There was no worried, no poverty, only stories of happy endings and glamor. But for a young woman from an average background to get into the acting business let alone onto the silver screen was not easy.

Yet she was determined that she would get there one way or the other. But unfortunately she was still unknown, which meant that she couldn't really earn a living on her voice alone. But she knew she was destined to get to the screen, somehow. She had to make due with her contribution at her local church for now, she just hoped that one of those days someone would hear her and see her as the promising starlet she was. But times where hard and the streets where filled with poor souls with dreams and hopes just like her, they had it even worse at least she knew that she had somewhere to sleep and her pay, through meagre, could get her something to eat.

She however would pass by a store every day on her way home from work and just fantasise about having the luxury of buying the burgundy red shoes in the window.

Her prayers had been answered by a man named Joey Drew. He was quite a striking man, dark hair slicked back, a well put together man that always had a stylish cane at hand. He had been one of the visitors to her local church seeking potential new talents for his cartoon show. Susie jumped at the opportunity this could be her way to get in. She had seen Mr. Drew's work before and found the characters and their show entertaining. Her parents however didn't take it quite as well as she would have hoped. Even if she didn't live at home they still felt like they had a say in what she should or shouldn't do. Both of them being suppositious to the point Susie found it silly.

"Working with a demon is never a good idea."

Susie didn't listen

She showed up a few days later at Mr. Drew's studio. The parts Susie got where minor, a few background characters but she put all her energy into every not and line she spoke and it payed off. The musicians complimented her for her hard work, the first time Lawrence and Polk heard her sing they could barely focus on the task at hand. Not that Sammy Lawrence ever admitted it to Susie herself, the best she could get out of the grouchy man was 'Good'.

Then two months after joining the studio Susie finally saw the answer to all of her prayers.

Alice Angel

The toon was a lot more human in comparison to Boris and Bendy, with dark hair, dark lipstick, curves, along with halo and horns. She was perfect, she was the perfect mix of daring and safe. Kids and adults would have no problem with finding the character appealing. Finally Susie would have an entire song dedicated to just her. Susie would take the stage, and Susie already recognised so much of herself in Alice. The struggle between being the 'good girl' yet have desires and ideas frowned upon by others. Fun fact was that there was even some similarity in their looks with both of them having dark hair, though Alice probably didn't have to worry about tangles the same way Susie did.

Susie adored her work

She could quit her job at the factory and dedicate herself to her voice acting even landing a few gigs at the local clubs as acts. She could spend some of her hard earned money on herself finally getting a pair of burgundy heels she had been eyeing for months. Some people even recognized her as the voice of Alice Angel, ask for an autograph and gushed about how much they adored a song and wondered how it was working for a man like Joey Drew.

Joey Drew was a visionary, he was at times as excitable as the children that lined up just to see the Bendy cartoons. He spoke about them going down into history about them leaving a mark on this town and the industry at large. Susie in a euphoric state thinking about how she could potentially rival the stars on the silver screen never stopped to think just what could go wrong.

Then came the ink machine

Susie had been sceptical about the huge contraption. But Joey Drew was a man that could find a way to make the impossible happen. The machine would supply the studio with all the ink it could potentially need, the animators would never have to worry about running out of ink.

The problem soon wasn't the lack of ink in the studio rather the massive supply of it. A few weeks after the machine had been installed part of the music studio flooded creating dark sticky pools. Susie first thought nothing of it. It was quickly dealt with the poor janitor Wally had to fix the pipe and mop up the mess. The musicians and voice actors where stuck only a bit over an hour otherwise it was nothing.

But the floods became more frequent and the amount just got greater. One day while recording it was interrupted by horrible clunking noises it got so bad, they all had to stop because the sound was being recorded as well. Then a sharp Klink was heard and soon the floor was filled with ink. They all watched in despair as part of their instruments got covered in the dark substance. Now ankle deep in ink, Susie looked around at the devastation and felt tears sting her eyes. Was this an omen for things to come?

Sammy had been furious, the music director gave Drew a scolding that was out of this world. If not for Sammy's talents he would probably have been kicked out for being so hard on their boss. Susie however was torn, she agreed with Sammy to an extent the machine was a nuisance, but she couldn't just leave after all the years she dedicated to this Studio… to Alice. She just couldn't leave the angel.

Once she was home again she looked at her shoes, those same burgundy shoes she had saved up for and where her pride and joy, the first thing she brought after becoming an actress where ruined. Now turned into inky messes that no polish or cleaning could save.

Little did she know, this was only the beginning

Roughly a year after her losing her shoes she had a pipe burst above her head. Susie had screamed in shock when it had happened. Despite wanting to go home and wash of everything Susie stayed at the studio since she had an episode she needed to voice. Once she got home however she more or less ran into the bathroom to get rid of the sticky black ink. After bathing for at least an hour, the young woman went to bed.

The next morning she noticed that her hair wasn't as messy as it usually was. Her curls seemed to have been kept in shape, there was even a nice shine in it. Pleased with her hair she left her house feeling better. She still had some work left to do on an Alice song and Sammy wanted to go over it with her, she couldn't wait.

Sammy Lawrence was not an easy man to please but he was also a difficult man to freak out. The sight of the usually cranky musician bending over his piano appearing to have a mental breakdown was not at all what Susie had anticipated. His pupils almost the size of pinheads and tears and sweat flooded down his face as he gasped for air. It scared Susie like nothing else. Like a madman he kept mentioning the machine, about the sound of its gears, that it had infested his mind, hearing it even when he was miles away from the studio.

Susie scared beyond believes left Sammy there, torn between contacting authorities and trying to comfort the clearly distressed man herself. She found Joey Drew in his office on the higher floors. Telling the head of the studio what had happened. The man just smiled and calmly told her.

"Don't worry, it is only temporary, there has been trouble with the machine and since Lawrence at times pulls all-nighters he has been hearing it. He should be back in shape in a few days. Perhaps you should take a few days off as well Miss Campbell, we don't want our little angle to get sick." Susie went back home again, thinking over the words Drew told her, the man had no reason to lie to her… right?

After a few day's Sammy did get better or at least he stopped mumbling about the machine. Sammy was even getting faster at his compositions and a new enthusiasm was surrounding the man's work. But Sammy himself, if you took one look into those eyes, they seemed manic almost desperate, but what they were searching for was anyone's guess.

Susie noticed that the tips of Sammy's fingers where turning black, she summed it up to him both writing on the sheets and having to fix the ink pump. She noticed a few days before going to sing at the church that her nails where black, knowing that her church would frown upon such display she decided to wear her gloves the entire day even when some of the choir girls asked her she simply said she was cold.

She tried and tried and tried some more but her nails wouldn't go back to their original colour. From that day forward Susie rarely took of her gloves. Because Susie was sure she saw how the colour was spreading tracing over the fingerprints filling in the tiny cracks day by day. It went so far that once it had consumed her thumbs and quite a bit of her other fingers Susie went to the doctor. He took a look at her hands and even after tests there was nothing indicating any illness. When she tried to ensure him that this was no scam he got frustrated with her. It was nothing dangerous, it was just ink. So she left the hospital not feeling any better.

That night she looked into her bathroom mirror. She looked pale, perhaps she was coming down with something. Her dark hair was still shiny and hadn't tangled for the last few days. Her eyes however looked dull, perhaps everything that has been happening have been taking it out on her appearance.

The worst was yet to come.

It started innocently enough she had been arguing with an old college about the colour of the dress. The woman saying it was a very vibrant Sky blue, but the voice actress insisting it was a lovely shade of Carolina blue. It happened more and more frequently she would go into a store and buy spices, when she asked about help finding spices, when she asked for red pepper and they stared at her questioning, pointing at the greyish green peppers in front of her and saying.

"You are looking at them."

Until one day every colour she had ever known had faded away. Leaving her world that only knew the shade of grey. She tried everything to see colours again. She would sit in the park but she couldn't see green, she went to the store every cosmetic she saw was grey, no matter how the clerk would describe lovely shades of peaches, roses or cherries.

She turned to the only man that possibly could understand, the same man that knew what was happening to Sammy, Joey Drew. He invited her into his office and offered her a cup of coffee. Not being one to refuse the dark brew she gladly took him up on his offer. Sitting down in the slightly rundown office. Joey sitting in his specially made wheelchair seemed happy even if there had been a decrease in production. Joey stopped focusing on the animation process, most of his attention was payed to the machine, him seeing it as the last hope for the studio.

"Don't worry my Angel. Everything is alright." Those words would have given her comfort before but there was something eerie in his tone and those eyes… they were like Sammy's.

She felt how her world begin to get fuzzy. She looked at the man she had admired, the smile on his face would never leave her memory. She felt how her chair toppled over and the world went black.

She woke up, her entire body felt strange when her eyes began to focus. She began to rub her head until she felt a protrusion on the side of her head, it felt like... bone? Had she hit her head that hard?

She pulled back her hand to see if there was any blood but to her horror there was no blood but she was missing a finger along with having hands bloated too big for her size. She looked down and saw a white bow and a black dress. So different from the blouse and skirt she came in with. She looked around hoping to find some help. But she was alone. She managed to get up onto her unsteady legs and began to walk down the hallway. When she finally saw a mirror she could see the extent of her injuries.

However it wasn't Susie Campbell looking back at her.

It was Alice Angel. Alive, existing, an idea brought to life. Everything as smooth and flawless as her picture, halo, beauty mark and all.

In Susie's place was Alice. Alice now existed, but in exchange Susie was gone.

How could she ever make it up to her?

Alice knew what she needed to do.

She would not forget Susie.


End file.
